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[00:00:08] Mike Howell:
The Dirt, with me, Mike Howell. An economics podcast where I present the down and dirty agronomic science to help grow crops and bottom lines. Inspired by economics.com, farming’s go-to informational resource, I’m here to break down the latest crop nutrition research, news, and issues, helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in.
[00:00:38] Mike Howell:
Listeners, welcome back for another episode of The Dirt. Glad you’re tuning in this week. We’ve got a brand new guest with us today. We’ve got Jason Newton with us. Now, if you’ve been listening very long, you’re familiar with Mark Tully. Mark used to come on and give us some economic outlooks, tell us what commodity prices were doing. Mark was on Jason’s team and has moved to a different position within the company, but Jason has volunteered to come in and take over where Mark left off. Jason, welcome to The Dirt, and if you will, kind of introduce yourself to our listeners, and let them know what you do.
[00:01:07] Jason Newton:
Great. Thanks, Mike. I’m a longtime listener and first-time participant, so happy to be able to come on the podcast with you today. Yeah, like you said, I lead the market research team here at Nutrien. The team is responsible for analyzing and forecasting the underlying fundamentals of our business. So everything from global, agricultural, supply and demand, grower economics, and then the supply, demand, and prices of the crop inputs that we’re producing and selling.
[00:01:34] Jason Newton:
I’ve been with Nutrien for about 19 years. I’m based in Canada, in the Calgary office. I’m really passionate about agriculture and agriculture markets. I grew up on a grain farm. I’ve worked in the agriculture fields, and grain markets, and crop input markets throughout my career. And when I’m not following ag markets, I like to be outside, and doing outdoor activities with my wife, and my 15-year-old son, and nine-year-old daughter.
[00:02:00] Mike Howell:
Jason, we’re glad to have you with us today. It’s spring, and everybody’s trying to get in the field, and get things going. Some places have already got started. Some places are still waiting on the snow to melt so they can get started, but spring is here, and it’s time to go.
[00:02:13] Mike Howell:
Everywhere I’ve been this winter, there’s one thing that’s on the forefront of everybody’s mind, and that’s the economy. Everybody wants to know what’s going on, what the markets are going to do. So I figured we would jump right in today and talk about some of these grain prices. Do we have an oversupply of grain, or are we not using as much grain as we need to be using? What’s going on with the grain prices, and factors that are contributing to these low grain prices today?
[00:02:36] Jason Newton:
Great question, Mike. And there’s been a lot of discussion around the challenging ag economic environment that we’re in. And when we look at grain prices overall, they’ve been relatively stable, at below to average levels over the past three years. So really seeing three consecutive years to this point of those types of levels, which has put pressure on farm margins.
[00:02:59] Jason Newton:
I will say in the last couple of weeks, and it’s probably important given the volatility that we’re seeing in commodity prices generally, to timestamp the discussion, but it’s March 12th today. Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a rise in crop prices, and really an upward trend, it’s a slow upward trend since the beginning of the year. But if we look at spot corn prices today, they’re up around 15 cents a bushel since the end of February, and we’re at the highest level in the spot market since about a year ago, pretty much back at average levels.
[00:03:28] Jason Newton:
Wheat prices are in similar average type levels, at the highest level in a year. We’ve actually seen quite a bit of strength in soybean prices, especially the past few weeks, it’s up about 50 cents per bushel since the end of February, and now up to the highest level in over two years. And we’ve seen prices improve, but we’re pretty much at, from grain perspective, at average levels, a little bit above from the soybean prices level at long-term average type levels.
[00:03:55] Jason Newton:
And that’s driven by really strong global production in the major producing regions globally. And we saw a record overall global grain production in 2025. Yields, actually, if we look at where yields were globally versus trend, they were about 1% above trend levels, and that’s the highest level above trend in global grain yields since 2017. Really strong global crop production. And if we want to look at what crop prices are going to do, global supply is… Tends to be the major driver, and that crop production is really what drove us to that level. If we look at where global supply demand balance is, it’s really moved from a level that was historically low, in terms of global stocks use ratios to something that’s more average.
[00:04:38] Jason Newton:
I think as we move toward the spring planting period in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s important to put that in perspective. We’re still in a situation where a production problem in a major production region around the world is going to have the impact of tightening the market quickly, and providing support to price. Right now, the area to look at is South America. We know that they’re in the final phases of safrinha corn planting. A lot of that crop has been planted outside of the ideal planting window. That’s likely to limit the acreage increase year over year in that region. But the other thing is it puts it more at risk of expanding into the dry season. It doesn’t mean there’s going to be a problem, but it does heighten the risk. So that’s something to watch as we go into the growing season.
[00:05:20] Jason Newton:
The only other thing I’d add on the grain markets, and something we’re thinking about, and watching is demand has been really strong. If we look at where global demand has been, the rate of growth in the past year is the strongest we’ve seen in a year since 2020, according to the USDA. Looking at U.S. corn in particular, the demand has been very strong this year. If we use what the USDA is projecting for 2026, ’27 demand, they just had their outlook conference a few weeks ago, we need almost 95 million acres of corn planted in the U.S. at trend yields to balance production and demand. It doesn’t take a huge problem, either lower area, or below trend yields, to tighten that supply demand balance. What happens during the growing season is still really important to driving crop markets over the coming year.
[00:06:07] Mike Howell:
Jason, you mentioned we needed 95 million acres of corn. USDA has made their projections and outlooks. What are those numbers looking like this year?
[00:06:15] Jason Newton:
The forecast that came out at the Outlook Conference a couple weeks ago, USDA forecast corn area to be 94 million acres versus 99 million acres a year ago. Soybeans were forecasted 85 million acres, versus, what, 81 million acres a year ago? So similar to that price trend I spoke about earlier, seeing some shift.
[00:06:34] Jason Newton:
I know we’re going to get into the input markets and fertilizer price volatility, but with some of that volatility that we’re seeing, there is a potential that there’s more area shifting. Of course, we’ll get the first indication from the USDA at the end of March, in terms of the Prospective Plantings report, the first real survey of growers’ intentions of what they plan to plant. And we know that they’re being surveyed as we speak. Again, March 12th, over the past couple of weeks, they’ve been surveying intention. That’s obviously been a very volatile period in terms of commodity prices. There’s potential for more shifts as we go forward. But under the USDA’s forecast of 94 million acres of corn, the supply demand balance tightens in the 2026, ’27 marketing year.
[00:07:16] Mike Howell:
Jason, I may throw you a curveball on this one, but what about the cattle markets? The cattle guys seem to be really happy these days. Prices seem to be through the roof, and I can’t go buy a steak anymore. The prices are just astronomical. How long are these cattle prices going to stay up? What are you projecting on the cattle markets?
[00:07:33] Jason Newton:
It’s a great point. I think I will steer clear of projecting cattle market dynamics, but touched on the really strong demand we’ve seen from a feed consumption perspective, and that’s part of it. We’re seeing really strong cattle markets. That’s part from a North American perspective. A bit of a slow growth in the herd, as well. That’s part of it, is a cattle cycle that the strength and prices hasn’t driven the supply growth that maybe it has historically, but certainly that’s part of the story.
[00:07:59] Jason Newton:
And then the other part from global supply demand perspective, we often talk about supply. You’re going to see the big step changes in market conditions because of supply issues, typically. But from a demand perspective, you can see policy-driven demand items have an impact. And historically, we saw that in 2007, with the renewable fuel standard, and there is a potential with moving toward year-round E15, the biofuel credits, and policies within the 45Z framework, that there are some potential positive demand factors to come out of biofuel policy within the U.S. as well.
[00:08:33] Mike Howell:
Jason, let’s switch gears a little bit. We’d like to talk about fertilizer for obvious reasons. So let’s talk about the fertilizer markets. And I guess let’s start with nitrogen. We know nitrogen prices are influenced heavily by the natural gas prices. We’re just coming out of the winter, and that’s a big demand for natural gas, obviously. So what’s going on with the nitrogen situation headed into planting season?
[00:08:53] Jason Newton:
Timestamp us here on March 12th, and in a really volatile nitrogen market at the moment, influenced by the conflict in the Middle East, and the supply impacts of that. When we look at natural gas prices, we’re really following international prices closely. Prices in those import markets, the high cost producing regions that are importing natural gas and LNG.
[00:09:16] Jason Newton:
And Europe is an important one, because of the high level of domestic nitrogen production within Europe. That’s a relatively high cost region. And we know that the natural gas prices there have remained relatively strong through the winter, and of late, they were in the $11 per MMBtu range in late February, and it was an actual fairly cold winter in Europe.
[00:09:36] Jason Newton:
But the conflict in the Middle East has led to concerns about LNG, a trade of LNG from that region, making about 20% of the global total. And we’ve seen prices of natural gas in Europe rise from $11 per MMBtu range in late February, up to over $17 per MMBtu today, on March 12th. A really dynamic cost environment there.
[00:09:59] Jason Newton:
And then the supply from the Middle East is really important. About 30% of global urea trade comes from the region, 25% of global ammonia trade comes from the region. From a North American perspective. It’s important for urea, about a third of the urea imported from offshore into the U.S. comes from that region. A lot of trade impacted. Of course, we’re here in March and the North American market is entering spring in some areas, and so the market’s pretty well positioned leading into spring for the most part, but it’s leading to a lot of wholesale global price volatility in nitrogen prices.
[00:10:33] Jason Newton:
On the global stage, the other markets we watch in urea are China and India. Start with India. India produces about 2.5 million tons a month of urea, and they’re a large importer as well. And we know that as a result of reductions in LNG, about 85% of India’s urea production utilizes LNG. So as a result, they’ve reduced rates, currently, to about 70% of full capacity. All things being equal, that could need to increase imports of urea into India.
[00:11:02] Jason Newton:
And then China’s important to watch. And there was expectations earlier this year that the Chinese government would expand the period of exports allowed, and typically China’s exporting urea in the times of year where they aren’t utilizing it. Last year they started in late June and into July. It was thought it could be April or May this year, and there’s still a chance it could be in May, but there’s uncertainty there. And with a rising global price, and China’s desire to keep its domestic prices low, that’s a factor that could influence export decisions. We expected Chinese urea exports to be up year over year, and we’d still have that expectation, but there is uncertainty, and it’s a policy-driven decision.
[00:11:39] Mike Howell:
Jason, let’s talk a little bit about the phosphate market. That’s one that everybody seems to be talking about these days. And while you’re talking about phosphate, if you will, kind of touch on sulfur. I don’t think everybody realizes how those two are interrelated when it comes to the production process, and we’re planning to do some podcasts later on in the year and talk about the actual production of some of these fertilizers, so we’ll touch on that later on. But tell us what’s going on with phosphate.
[00:12:02] Jason Newton:
Phosphate has been a market where there’s been a lot of supply challenges globally over the last couple of years. A big part of that is China. And similar to what I mentioned with respect to urea, China has been restricting the exports of phosphate. Now, the difference between urea and phosphate with China is that China’s actually expanded its domestic urea production. As domestic consumption has increased, domestic production of urea has increased.
[00:12:28] Jason Newton:
On the phosphate side, domestic production in China is relatively flat. As domestic consumption for fertilizer increases, in addition to a growing demand for phosphate for lithium iron phosphate batteries, that’s limited the amount of exportable surplus that they have, and the government in China has restricted exports, and we’ve seen exports from China decline as a result. And we’ve seen some increase in production in regions like Morocco that’s offset part of that lost supply, but it hasn’t been sufficient to offset it all.
[00:12:59] Jason Newton:
The other factor that’s impacted phosphate is India. India coming into 2025 with really low inventories of phosphate. India’s a heavily government subsidized market, government controlled market, and so not responsive to the market conditions that we see globally. We saw strong growth in India in imports of phosphate in 2025, regardless of the market conditions. And so those two factors, lower Chinese supply, the higher Indian import demand, tighten the supply demand balance, and has led to relatively strong phosphate prices, and weak application economics, which we’ve seen have some negative impact on demand in the Americas.
[00:13:35] Jason Newton:
As we look toward 2026, we continue to see tight supplies from China, and in fact, in late 2025, the Chinese government announced that it was delaying the export window another two months, so that takes further supply out of the market. But the most recent factor is the loss of supply from Saudi Arabia as a result of the conflict. So seeing that further tighten supplies in the short term.
[00:13:57] Jason Newton:
And then the other major factor is sulfur. And we saw sulfur prices start to increase globally in the second half of 2025, driven by a number of supply and demand factors. On the supply side, seeing Russian refineries hit by drone attacks, and cause a loss of production. It’s led to the Russian government restricting exports of sulfur from the region, so that tightens the supply. And we’ve seen incremental demand from nickel processing in Indonesia, that in addition to the phosphate demand, which is really an important end market for sulfur, that incremental demand has further tightened it.
[00:14:30] Jason Newton:
Now, over the last couple of weeks, further tightness in the sulfur market because of the importance of the Middle East as an export region. About 50% of global trade comes from the Middle East, and so that’s tightening that market further. Sulfur is a byproduct. It’s really driven by oil and gas production refining drives the production of sulfur, and so really dependent on the supply side from the output from those sectors. That’s a market that’s continuing to increase the marginal cost production of phosphate, and provide that floor to the market.
[00:15:00] Mike Howell:
Jason, I guess the last of the big three is potash. What’s going on with our potash situation?
[00:15:05] Jason Newton:
Potash has definitely been a lot less volatile, and pretty positive in terms of demand over the past year. And of the major nutrients, it’s the least impacted directly from the conflict in the Middle East, as well. We’ve seen continued strong demand for potash, driven in part by favorable application economics. And this is especially the case in Southeast Asia, where palm oil prices support the economics of growing oil palm in the region. I’ve seen strong demand in prices for some of the other key commodities in the region, including fruits, has been an area of growth in that region.
[00:15:39] Jason Newton:
Strong demand in 2025 in Southeast Asia, fairly steady demand in Brazil and in North America. And in China, they signed an annual contract earlier than normal. They signed the contract for 2026 in late 2025. We know that they drew down on their strategic reserves of potash in 2025, and there is a potential that they rebuild some of those reserves this year, which would support the global demand. And from a supply perspective, there’s been sufficient supply growth in markets like Russia, and Belarus, and Canada to balance that demand growth. Relatively balanced supply and demand in potash market.
[00:16:15] Mike Howell:
Jason, we’ve covered an awful lot of topics today. Is there anything that we may have left out? Anything you think we need to mention before we wrap this episode up?
[00:16:23] Jason Newton:
I think we’ve covered most of it, Mike. I think obviously we live in a pretty volatile and unpredictable time. There’s a lot of cost volatility that comes out of underlying fertilizer markets. The crop markets are providing volatility that growers need to deal with. And then energy market volatility as well, and heading into spring planting, the fuel costs have been volatile as well.
[00:16:45] Jason Newton:
Happy to have the opportunity to maybe provide a bit of information about what’s happening, and I think I’d just add that in these volatile times, it’s really helpful, I think, for those in the industry to be talking to their trusted advisors, and market advisors and so on, and trying to stay on top of the events as they transpire, because there’s a lot changing all the time.
[00:17:06] Jason Newton:
The only other thing I’d add is we’re getting into a season where we’re starting to see some field activity. It’s snowing here in Calgary today, so we’re a ways off having field activity here, but just wish everybody remain safe during spring planting, and all the best, or favorable weather as we move into spring field work.
[00:17:24] Mike Howell:
Jason, we appreciate you taking time to be with us today. We hope to have you on, regular guest, throughout the rest of the year. And I did hear that they’re doing some talks around a farm bill in Washington over the last couple of weeks. So, if we ever get a farm bill, I’m sure we’ll have plenty to talk about on that topic. Listeners, if you will, hang on for just a couple of minutes and we’ll be right back with segment two.
[00:17:45] Mike Howell:
Farming isn’t farming without questions, and now there’s a place to go for answers. At eKonomics, an entire team of agronomists is waiting and ready to help, for free. No question is too big or too small. Visit nutrien-ekonomics.com, and submit your question with the Ask an Agronomist feature.
[00:18:08] Mike Howell:
Listeners, welcome back for segment two. As you know, this is our Ask an Agronomist question, and we’re proud to have Dr. Karl Wyant back in the studio with us today. Karl, welcome back.
[00:18:18] Karl Wyant:
Appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
[00:18:19] Mike Howell:
Karl, today’s question is about soil sampling, and the question is, do soil samples pay off when fertilizer prices are high?
[00:18:26] Karl Wyant:
Yes, absolutely. Soil samples are a way to get sort of a bank account statement for your field, and it gives you a pathway to have a good dataset on which investments to make. And those investments, of course, are fertilizers. One piece that we need to connect here is, there’s a soil sample level that you’ll get back, low, very low, optimum, high, something like that, for your nutrients, and then you can actually tie that into a fertilizer recommendation.
[00:18:51] Karl Wyant:
Generally, the lower the soil supply, the more fertilizer you need to meet the nutrients needs for the crop that year. Having that nutrient by nutrient information, where you can go through your full soil bank account on what it takes to grow a crop, and then make a prescription blend, or fertilizer choices afterwards, can allow you to save money in certain areas, spend money in others, and really dial in the financial allocation you have for your fertilizer inputs based on solid science, and solid data.
[00:19:19] Mike Howell:
Karl, we really appreciate you joining us, as always. Listeners, thank you for tuning in this week. If you need more information on anything we’ve talked about today, you can visit our website, that’s nutrien-ekonomics.com. Until next time, this has been Mike Howell with The Dirt.
[00:19:37] Mike Howell:
Hey guys, if you like what you heard today, do us a favor, and share this podcast with someone else. It could be your neighbor, your friend, your crop advisor, or whoever you think would enjoy it. Your support helps ensure future episodes. So please like, subscribe, share, and rate the show wherever you’re listening from.
